Critical Care Reviews Newsletter

Welcome to the 531st Critical Care Reviews Newsletter, bringing you the best critical care research and open access articles from across the medical literature over the past seven days.

The highlights of this week's edition are two stroke randomised controlled trials, comparing intra-arterial alteplase with placebo following successful thrombectomy in patients with large vessel occlusion acute ischemic stroke & endovascular therapy for acute stroke with a large ischemic region; systematic reviews and meta analyses on sex differences in treatment of adult ICU patients & timing of tracheostomy in acute traumatic spinal cord injury; and observational studies on epinephrine versus norepinephrine in cardiac arrest patients with post-resuscitation shock & pneumomediastinum in COVID-19.

There are also guidelines on mass critical care surge response during COVID-19 & ineffective maintenance of organ functions (futile therapy) in paediatric intensive care units; narrative reviews on acute ischaemic stroke & gastroparesis in the intensive care unit; and commentaries on prone position during venovenous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation & time to retire the concept of transient ischemic attack. If you only have time to read one review article this week, try this one on the application of POCUS in patients with COVID-19 for acute respiratory distress syndrome management.

The big news this week is the termination of the CLOVERS trial comparing restricted fluid administration combined with early vasopressor use with liberal fluid administration in patients with septic shock.

Critical Care Reviews Meeting 2022

Registration for CCR22, on June 15th to 17th at Titanic Belfast, is open. We're delighted to add the BaSICS trial to the programme, to be presented by Fernando Zampieri from São Paulo, Brazil. BaSICS compared Plasmalyte with 0.9% saline in 11,000 patients in the ICU, as well as comparing two rates of administration of these fluids.

BOUGIE Follow-Up Podcast

The follow-up podcast to the BOUGIE trial results presentation livestream and publication is now out. Brian Driver and Matt Prekker address the questions and comments on twitter after the presentation of the results of this trial, comparing the use of a bougie with that of a stylet in 1102 patients requiring emergency intubation in the emergency department or ICU.